Creative Commons, indeed, is the shizzy for rizzy. Now, while that is a superlative I bestow on quite a few things that pleasantly surprise me with their innovation, it happens to hold alot of water for CC. Their stance on moderation in IP rights is something fresh and necessary for the creative types. Just knowing that Creative Commons is there to help and protect me makes me want to share with everyone. Efforts such as this, I think, will spark similar fits of media freedom. With this and my new found knowledge of self-publishing via Amazon, I’m very happy about the state of independent media deployment and distribution. Even if I don’t publish something in this open venue, I’m happy that it’s there and available to others. Maybe, with some organization of thoughts, I’ll have some ideas into material I’d like to publish. I mean, I certainly try to generate a good deal of creativity across the gamut of media, but to actually deem something that I do as fit for dissemination to the public is a big step for me. In short, I’m working on it.

A three hour block of information illustrative of String Theory doesn’t seem so appealing to me, but I have taken a special effort to keep from buying the book, this video series’ namesake. This isn’t because I don’t want to read it, but because I have a few too many science texts that sit in my reading pile, waiting for me to attempt them. They give me a fair chance, but all too often I feel as though I’ve disappointed Bryce, my quantum physicist friend, with my inability to process some of the information and retain the rest. I wish I were smarter… or at least not so lazy. Either of those might help me out in the long run. Regardless, I think your approval is the thing that will eventually relegate me to 180 minutes of awe from which, hopefully, I will emerge for a better understanding of Brian Greene’s view of the universe.

Of course, your Coaster anecdote brings a smile to my face, as I am happy that you feel more confident about going to Guadec. It seems as though you take great joy in contributing to the OSS cause, and it gives me hope to see idealist behavior in any form. However, my interest in the story also relates to my own desire to be a part of something as innovative and helpful as the Open Source Movement. It really seems exceptional to be able to fix part of a program that you want to use and then have everyone adopt that fix. It’s a wonderful sense of cooperation in an online environment where nothing of the sort existed. Soon, I’d like to invest myself in seeing how I could help the open source community. I’m sure there’s something I can do.

Oh right… fuzzy.
You’re a prick for making me say that.

You don’t have it so bad either. You hardly have the right to take responsibility for your own actions today. You certainly don’t have a right to die, unless it’s for your country, your rights to free speech mean little to nothing, especially when being fed into the freedom of the press, now nullified by the PATRIOT Act. Try protesting governmental actions, burning the flag or carrying a gun. Many peope don’t even know that burning the American flag isn’t illegal. Even more think that it should be. So why should you care about rights you don’t even exercise? Just because it isn’t illegal doesn’t mean that you can’t be branded a criminal in the court of public opinion. Who gives a fuck about public opinion? Legislators base their decisions, in part on the public opinion of their constituents, and the rest is based on financial contributions. But they can’t continue to collect that money if they lose re-election, so the public opinion has a small part in the lawmaking process.

Where is this going? All this leads to a big sign that says, “You Lose.” Because of a mass apathy in this country, those that are both vocal and rich are the ones that’re heard through laws and then obeyed through subsequent actions. If fear is an issue, then providing aggressive bills that offer safety through reduced rights just confirms, through faulty logic, that if we don’t have more safety, then we have more to fear. This culture of fear, truly, is in everything from the ground up in this country, but since we gave the government the power to take away our power to give it power, then who’s the one with the power now? Certainly not you or I.

So, police state, we’re not, but if there were an awards show for most likely to become a police state, we’d have already invaded the awards show on suspicion of supporting terrorism, executed the voting board and set up our own brand of flavorless democracy byproducts in it’s place, just so we could be sure they’d give the award to us. It’s as hopeless as it gets in this defunct democracy, and with no hope of swaying either legisators or the populous, just engage, whole heartedly, in civil disobedience. If you take your rights into your own hands, you’re just as patriotic as any of the founding fathers of this country. This what they were preparing us for with that Bill of Rights, this is the tyranny they forecasted with double doppler radar precision, and the government has stolen your Umbrella of Safety. Get ready for a downpour.

Happy to be the filler in MeatSpace.
-John

:)

I just stumbled onto your blog tonight, but trust me, this is a place I will frequent, so keep it up!

All my best!